Sweatin’ Bullets (3/15/07): Criminal Brain Fat

I know the infamous “Witches House” in Beverly Hills always looks derelict, even more as shown here while under “renovation” last June… has anyone been by lately and seen if its in better shape? (photo by K Santos)

Tomorrow is the last day to vote for LA’s “most eyecatching bookstore employee” in LA Brain Terrain’s “Bookstore Babe Challenge”. Currently in the lead are Manny at Book Soup and Allison H. at Vromans. (original post here, newest update here, vote here)

Good and bad news for LA’s two most famous “fat bloggers”: Jason Calacanis has dropped to 189.6 pounds, down from 207 last year. But Kevin Smith’s promised weekly posts on the subject hasn’t been updated since Feb. 20th – while Pat at Eating L.A. spotted him “picking up several dozen peanut butter ‘n jelly filled doughnuts” last Saturday at Fritelli’s in Beverly Hills.

Also it was never called Burgers n Shit, that was added by a wonderful Production Company, much to the disdain of area residents, and never removed. Personally I thought it was cool… even when the covered up the “i”.

If I still subscribed to the Times, I’d cancel my subscription because of the crap their management has done lately. But alas, I canceled my subscription years ago over the crap management was doing then.

I really appreciate the plug for the newspaper; remind me to buy you a few beers the next time we meet, Wayland’s at 2nd and Alameda would be good during the week.

The Chicago Tribune purchased the Times Mirror Company seven years ago, since then, we have lost 225,000 daily readers. Many attempt to put all the blame upon the Internet, to a certain extent this is true, but many of the lost readers are due too the changes in staffing and content.

Advertising rates are based on readership, the lower the subscriber base, the lower the revenue brought in to the company. The Los Angeles Times accounts for twenty percent of the Tribune’s bottom line, yet they want further cuts in staffing.

Folks, feel free to leave comments regarding your likes and dislikes of the newspaper on my blog, the movers and shakers at the Tribune Company visit daily, and seem to have no clue why readers are leaving for local newspapers and blogs.